Tag: food
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The Agri-Intellectuals and the Omnivore’s Delusion
Playing on the title of Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Missouri farmer Blake Hurst pens an extremely well argued and reasoned response to the criticisms the ‘agri-intellectuals’ pile on industrial farmers and their production methods—particularly those rearing livestock. Farming has always been messy and painful, and bloody and dirty. It still is. This is something…
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The ‘Benefits’ of Organic
After analysing all available evidence from the past 50 years, a study commissioned by the UK government’s Food Standards Agency has come to the conclusion that organic food is no healthier (in terms of nutritional value and any extra health benefits) than ‘ordinary’ food. From the blog of the FSA’s Chief Scientist: The most comprehensive review…
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To Breastfeed or Not
In governmental and popular literature breastfeeding is praised as being the optimum solution to infant feeding. The Wikipedia article, for instance, is extensive and well-cited suggesting the following benefits to infants: superior nutrition, greater immune health, higher intelligence… the list goes on. For the mother, many long- and short-term health benefits are also cited. In what…
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Salads a Licence to Eat Unhealthily
Think [generic fast food chain] have been pro-health by offering salads on their menu (calorific value of said salads aside)? Maybe not, says new research showing that if a salad is on a menu, many are more likely to choose the unhealthy option than if the healthy choice was absent. College students were given one of two…
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Gluttony and Adultery
Are our evolving social and cultural judgments about sex and food related? Mary Eberstadt, fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institute, believes so. Pulitzer Prize-winning op-ed columnist George Will discusses Eberstadt’s theory, stating that nowadays we judge people more for their food choices than their sexual behaviours, whereas a generation ago these moral poles would have…
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The Evolutionary Role of Cooking
Cooking is “the evolutionary change that underpins all others” and is what makes us human, according to Richard Wrangham, Harvard University. The theory: the process of cooking makes our food more digestible, freeing up a huge amount of calories that are then expended on other, more important, activities. And with Homo sapiens, what makes the species unique…
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Recipes and Vegetables: Now and Then
A study looking at recipes in ‘classic’ recipe books such as The Joy of Cooking has found an average 40% increase in calories per serving over the last 70 years—about an extra 77 calories—due, in part, to a vast increase in portion sizes. Lisa Young, an adjunct nutrition professor at New York University, had similar…
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Observations on Dining
Ben Casnocha compiles a list of grievances and observations on “restaurants, tips, and bread baskets”. For example: If I were a restaurant manager I would spend 30 minutes with each of my waiters explaining the research around how to maximize tips from patrons. For example, leaving a mint with the bill or drawing a smiley…
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The Psychology of Wine
On Vines and Minds is an excellent summary of the history and psychology of wine (pdf/html). Some topics of note: Music radically influences our purchasing habits: classical music increases the amount we’re willing to spend while characteristically French music sways us toward wine from that region (similarly for German music/wine). Colour affects the brain’s response…
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Books on Molecular Gastronomy
Molecular gastronomy is defined as the “scientific discipline involving the study of physical and chemical processes that occur in cooking”. Following on from a conversation I had with Andrew this past weekend—and after reading this great article from The New York Times—I decided to compile a shortlist of the best books on molecular gastronomy (according to me):…